
HALF MOON SERIES 



EDITED BY 

MAUD WILDER GOODWIN 
ALICE CARRINGTON ROYCE 
RUTH PUTNAM AND 
EVA PALMER BROWNELL 




Vol. II.. No. o. September, 1898. 



Barfs Schools ano 
Schoolmasters of 
Bew Emsteroam 



Bg 



lemma IDan \Decbten 



*& 



Copyright, 1898, by 

Q. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
New York London 

Ube Iftnfcfcerbocfcet 8>rees, New Rochelle, N. Y. 

Entered at the Post Office, New Rochells, N. Y., as Second-class Matter 



Price Ten Cents 



Per Year, One Dollar 



MISS SPENCE'S 
Boarding and Day School for Girls 

preparatory Scaoemfc, ana 
College*preparators Coursea 

No more than eight pupils constitute any class 
,qo, 6 WEST 48th STREET, with Annex 

MRS. LESLIE MORGAN'S 

jl 3Boaroina ano 2>as Scbool 

" for ©iris 

13 and 15 WEST 86th STREET 
NEW YORK CITY < < < < 

Kindergarten, Through College Preparatory 
Home and Chaperonage 

JHE HELBURN SCHOOL 

35 WEST 9OTH STREET 

Das Scbool for Boss ano $trls 

kindergarten, primary and grammar de- 
4£» partments. thoroughly graded. sep- 

«** arate class-room and teacher for 

each class. 



©be linlckerbccfter tf reee, »ew JDorft 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



Chap.. Copyright No 

Shelf. 



• 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



EARLY SCHOOLS AND SCHOOLMASTERS 



"^ 




TWO COPIES RECEIVED. 






Half Moon Series 

Published in the Interest of the New York 
City History Club. 



Volume II. Number IX. 



321 



EARLY SCHOOLS AND SCHOOLMASTERS 
OF NEW AMSTERDAM. 

By EMMA VAN VECHTEN. 

DURING the first few years after the found- 
ing of New Amsterdam little attention 
was paid to the education of the children. 
The West India Company regarded the settle- 
ment in the light of a trading-post rather than 
of a colony and was bent on receiving rather 
than giving privileges. ' Although it had made 
vague promises guaranteeing to settlers many 
advantages, spiritual and material, it was in no 
haste to redeem its pledges. The settlers for 
their part were so much occupied with plant- 
ing grain, raising their thatch-roofed cottages, 
and repairing their rickety old fort, that the 
children were neglected and roamed unvexed 
of schoolmasters, in ignorance and bliss, along 
the banks of the broad canal, or clambered 
across the rocks of the Capske at low tide. 

So things went on for seven years ; then 
came a change. The spring of 1633 opened 



Ube Jffrst 
Jfcw IBcara 



322 



3Earl£ Scbools anfc Schoolmasters 



HJ>am 

1Roelant= 

sen 



propitiously for the little colony. Surely it 
promised great things that the same year 
should bring to the settlement a new gov- 
ernor, a new minister, and a new school- 
master, the first who had ever set foot in the 
colony. Yet it was but a very short time be- 
fore the new Governor had earned his title 
of "Walter, the Waverer," before the new 
domine, Everardus Bogardus, proved himself 
a quarrelsome shepherd, and the new school- 
master had shown his unfitness to train the 
youthful burghers of New Amsterdam either in 
wisdom or virtue. 

The career of Adam Roelantsen, this first 
pedagogue of New Amsterdam, was a check- 
ered one, and hardly bears inspection, if we 
wish to believe in the worth of the founder of 
our schools. Valentine gives a sad account of 
his misdoings, and though that Froissart of our 
city chronicles is generally to be taken with 
many grains of caution, in this instance he is 
so reinforced by the court records that his 
testimony must be accepted as in the main 
fair and just. 

Roelantsen was born in Dokkum, a city of 
Northern Holland, in 1 606, 2 and was therefore 
twenty-seven years old at the time he landed 
in New Amsterdam. Within a few years 
after his arrival he had entered upon his turbu- 
lent and litigious experiences. On September 
20, 1638, we find a suit before the court in 



Earls Scbools anfc Scboolmasters 



3 2 3 



which Roelantsen figures as plaintiff against 
Gillis de Voocht, on a demand for payment for 
washing defendant's linen. The defendant 
made no objection to the price asked ; but 
claimed that Roelantsen had agreed to do the 
washing by the year, and that time being not 
yet expired, the payment was not due. The 
court held with the defendant, and Roelantsen 
was compelled to subsist till the end of his con- 
tract upon his professional stipend, which was 
unquestionably meagre. In the same year the 
schoolmaster appeared again in the courts, 
making affidavit this time against Grietje 
Reyners for misconduct. He soon had occa- 
sion to prove the truth of the proverb of his race 
— JVie %ijn bur en beledigt maakt het %ich %el- 
ven daarna %uur (He who slanders his 
neighbors makes it sour for himself), for when 
he undertook to circulate evil reports touch- 
ing Jochem Haller's wife, that angry burgher 
haled him before the court on a charge of 
slander. Roelantsen in his turn accused 
various people of slander, though it is hard to 
see what fiction worse than truth could have 
been invented about him by his neighbors. 

No wonder the old record states that " peo- 
ple did not speak well of him." In spite of his 
reputation, however, he succeeded in marry- 
ing a widow presumably possessed of some 
property, as we hear no more of his taking in 
washing, and in 1642, after his return from a 



HBam 

1RoeIant= 

sen 



3 2 4 



J6arl£ Scbools ant) Scboolmasters 



tftoelant* 

een 



temporary sojourn in Rensselaerswyck, we 
read of the following contract made by him 
for a house to be built on the north side of 
Brouwer Street, between Whitehall and Broad, 
and next door but one to Van Courtlandt's 
brewery. By the terms of the contract "John 
Teunison agrees to build the same of the fol- 
lowing dimensions : In length thirty feet, in 
width eighteen feet, in height eight feet ; the 
beams to be hewn at four sides, the house to 
be well and tight clapboarded and roofed with 
substantial reed thatch ; the floors tight and 
made of clapboard ; two doors, one entry, a 
pantry, a bed-stead, a staircase to go to the 
garret ; the upper part of the chimneys to be 
of wood ; one mantelpiece ; the entry to be 
three feet wide with a partition. The house 
to be ready by ist of May next." 

For the building of this house Roelantsen 
agreed to pay three hundred and fifty guilders 
($140), half payment to be made when the 
timber was brought, and the rest when the 
house was finished. 

This appears to have been the most prosper- 
ous period of Roelantsen's life. He had a 
daughter, Tryntje, baptized in the old church, 
and as a husband, a father, and a landholder 
he seemed to have given hostages to fortune, 
and engaged to comport himself as a good and 
thrifty citizen. In 1643, he was made "Weigh- 
master" 8 and added to his possessions by the 



Barlp Scbools an& Scboolmasters 325 



purchase of another lot of land. In 1644, a son Htam 



was born to him, and baptized Daniel. Two 
more children were added to the household 
before the death of his wife (spoken of in sub- 
sequent records as Lyntje Martens), and then 
the prosperity began to suffer eclipse. 

In 1646, he set sail for Holland ; but made 
only a short stay, for in the fall of that year we 
see him once more in litigation in the New 
Amsterdam court. The skipper of the vessel 
in which he returned had endeavored to col- 
lect passage money ; Roelantsen refused pay- 
ment, and claimed that the skipper had agreed 
that he should cross the ocean "free of pas- 
sage money and freight of his trunk provided 
he would work as one of the sailors, and the 
skipper had also said repeatedly that he should 
ask no pay from Roelantsen because he said 
the prayers." Apparently the worth of Roe- 
lantsen's prayers was accepted by the court 
as an equivalent for the passage money, since 
it is recorded that the skipper was non-suited. 

A month later Roelantsen was brought be- 
fore the court as a malefactor charged with an 
offense so flagrant that the court declared such 
deeds "may not be tolerated in a country 
where justice is revered ; therefore we con- 
demn the said Roelantsen to be brought to 
the place of execution and there flogged and 
banished forever out of this country." In con- 
sideration of the defendant having four mother- 



"IRoelanU 
sen 



326 



Earls Scbools anfc Scboolmasters 



B&am 

•Roelants 

sen 



less children the sentence was delayed ; though 
it is difficult to see what benefit was to accrue 
to the little half-orphans from the guardianship 
of such a father. This singular vagabond 
seems to have had some peculiar charm for 
the staid burghers of New Amsterdam, for, in 
spite of his misdeeds, 1 find it stated on ex- 
cellent authority that in 1647, ne was a P _ 
pointed Provost, and in 1653, was a member 
of the Burgher-Corps of New Amsterdam. 4 
With this date this strange figure in our early 
history vanishes from the records, to give place 
to a long line of pedagogical successors, often 
worthier, but seldom either so picturesque or 
so clearly etched out against the background 
of the past. 

His career is the more amusing in the light 
of the duties of the Parochial Schoolmaster, as 
set forth in his commission ; these were "to 
promote religious worship, to read a portion 
of the Word of God to the people, to endea- 
vor, as much as possible, to bring them up in 
the ways of the Lord, to console them in their 
sickness, and to conduct himself with all dili- 
gence and fidelity in his calling so as to give 
others a good example as becometh a devout, 
pious, and worthy consoler of the sick, church- 
clerk, Precenter and Schoolmaster." 6 The 
form of this commission shows how closely 
State, Church, and School were bound to- 
gether in Old Holland, and New. The old 



iBarls Scbools ant) Scboolmasters 



3 2 7 



Dutch records expressly declare that "School- 
keeping and the appointment of Schoolmas- 
ters depend absolutely from the Jus patronatus 
and require a license from the Director-Gen- 
eral and Council."" The offices of teacher 
and preacher were closely allied and the duty 
of consoling the sick equally devolved upon 
both domine and schoolmaster. 

The requirements for the office of school- 
master in all its capacities were severe. At 
one time the Consistory stated them as 
follows : 



1Rcqutvc= 

merits for 

tbe office 

of Scbools 

master 



" First : That he be a person of suitable qualifications to 
officiate as schoolmaster and chorister, possessing a knowl- 
edge of music, a good voice so as to be heard, an aptitude 
to teach others the science, and that he should be a good 
reader, writer and arithmetician. 

" Second : That he should be of the Reformed Religion, 
a member of the church, bringing with him testimonials of 
his Christian character and Conduct. 

" Third : That whether married or unmarried he be not 
under twenty-five nor over thirty-five." 

The duties of this official were as varied as 
his qualifications, since he was expected to 
keep the books for the Consistory, to read 
and pray with the sick, and in every way to 
supplement the work of the minister, even to 
turning the hour-glass during church service 
as a reminder that the sermon had continued 
beyond the allotted time. This semi-ecclesias- 
tical character belonged only to the official 



!28 



Earh? Scbools an& Schoolmasters 



5an Stcvm 
cnsen 



schoolmaster, appointed by the West India 
Company and acting under the direction of 
the church. Other teachers independent of 
such control, though requiring a license from 
civil and church authorities, appeared in the 
colony from time to time and sought to earn a 
livelihood by tuition fees ; but these fees seem 
to have proved discouragingly small, and 
the schoolmaster generally tried to combine 
school-keeping with some more remunerative 
occupation. 

One Aden Jansen Van Ilpendam opened a 
school in New Amsterdam a year before the 
sentence of banishment was passed upon Roe- 
lantsen.' His terms of tuition were two dried 
bear skins per annum. His school was so 
successful that it continued for over a decade. 

The official successor of Roelantsen was 
Jan Stevensen, whose school-keeping is set 
down in the Register of New Amsterdam as 
dating from 1643, tne y ear m which Roelant- 
sen was made Weigh-master. The Company 
granted Stevensen a patent of a lot of land lo- 
cated on Broadway, then the "Heere Straat," 
adjoining the old churchyard. The question 
of a public schoolhouse was by this time 
seriously agitated. There was talk of building 
a schoolhouse when the stone church in the 
Fort was begun ; but that edifice used up all 
the funds available, and the children found 
themselves with no better accommodation 



Barl£ Scbools an& Scboolmasters 



329 



" the bowl has been going round a long time for the purpose 
of erecting a school house and it has been built with words 
[observe the fine sarcasm] for as yet the first stone is not 
laid, some materials only are provided. The money, never- 
theless, given for the purpose has found its way out and is 
mostly spent so that it falls short and nothing permanent 
has as yet been effected for that purpose." 9 

To this remonstrance the West India Com- 
pany made rather tart answer that "the Di- 
rector hath not the administration of the 



"Cbe 
Question 

of a 

{public 

ScbooI= 

bouse 

agitateo 



than a room in a private house, and those who 
have studied the conditions of life in the New 
Amsterdam of Stuy vesant's day, and appreciate 
how small were those private houses, built 
of mud and reeds, 8 will understand how inad- 
equate a single room in one was likely to 
prove. In 1647, public education was en- 
tirely suspended, owing to the lack of suit- 
able accommodation. The Director appealed 
to the Commonalty for aid, saying : ' ' Whereas, 
for want of a school house, no school has been 
kept here during three months, by which the 
youth are spoiled, it is proposed to consider 
where a convenient place may be fixed upon 
so as to keep the youth from the streets and 
under strict subordination." Contributions 
for erection of the school-building were called 
for, and some response was made; but still 
without result, for a petition addressed to the 
States-General by the New Netherlanders in 
October, 1649, sets forth that 



33° 



"Earls Scbools an& Scboolmasters 



Jan 

Cornell; 

sen 



money that was taken up on the plate; but 
Jacob Couwenhoven who is one of the peti- 
tioners, hath kept account of it in his quality 
of churchwarden.*' These bickerings and 
recriminations continued for several years ; 
meanwhile Stevensen was succeeded, in 1648 
or 1640, by Jan Cornelissen, reputed to have 
been lazy, and much given to the use of " hot 
and rebellious liquors." Perhaps the Direct- 
ors of the Company began to perceive that 
such service was worse than none, and that 
it was hopeless to secure better without both 
assured income and a suitable place of instruc- 
tion, for in the spring of 1652 we find them 
writing to Stuy vesant : 



" We give our consent that a public school may be es- 
tablished, for which one schoolmaster will be sufficient, and 
he may be engaged at 250 florins [$100] annually. We rec- 
ommend you Jan de la Montagne whom we have provision- 
ally favored with the appointment. You may appropriate 
the city tavern for that purpose, if practicable." 



The city tavern herein noted was no other 
than the old inn which later gained greater 
renown as the Stadt Huys. It raised its 
quaint "crow-step gables" far above the 
lowly thatched roofs of the village that clus- 
tered around it, and its walls and chimneys 
of substantial brick and stone were built to 
withstand wind and weather and, like the old 
church, to bear enduring testimony to the 



Earl£ Scbools anD Scboolmasters 



331 



greatness of Director William Kieft, who or- 
dered it erected, in 1642, at the head of Coen- 
ties Slip. 

The Burgomasters perhaps found it not 
" practicable " to oust the loungers who had 
so long smoked their pipes in the cozy corner 
by the great chimney or tippled their beer 
over the wooden tables standing close to the 
roadside on the brick-floored, vine-shaded 
stoop. No doubt these frequenters of the old 
tavern were loath to give place to school- 
boys with puffed breeches and plastered hair, 
sitting solemnly on the benches which ran 
along the wall, or standing in disgrace, ^otscap 
on head, in the corner allotted to dunces. Just 
how they settled the question does not appear; 
but several years later, in 1656, the school- 
master, then Harmanus Van Hoboocken, 
sent the following urgent appeal to the 
Burgomasters and Schepens on the occasion 
of the burning of the schoolhouse : 



Tbarmanus 

Van 
Iboboocfcen 



"The reverential request of Harmanus Van Hoboocken, 
Schoolmaster of this city, is that he may be allowed the use 
of the hall and side chamber of the City Hall for the use of 
his school and as a residence for his family, inasmuch as he, 
petitioner, has no place to keep school in, or to live in dur- 
ing the winter, it being necessary that the rooms should be 
made warm, which cannot be done in his own house from 
its unfitness. The petitioner further represents that he is 
burthened with a wife and children and moreover his wife is 
expected shortly to be brought to child-bed again, so that 
he is much at a loss how to make accomodation for his 



33 2 



lEaviy Scbools anfc Scboolmasters 



Ibannaitus 

Wan 
Tboboochen 



family and school children. The petitioner therefore asks 
that he may use the chamber wherein Gouert Coerten at 
present dwells." I0 

The answer to this petition set forth that 
"Whereas, the room which petitioner asks 
for his use as a dwelling and schoolroom is 
out of repair and moreover is wanted for 
other uses, it cannot be allowed to him. But 
as the town youth are doing so uncommon 
well now, it is thought proper to find a con- 
venient place for their accommodation, and for 
that purpose petitioner is granted 100 guilders 
yearly." 

Before the coming of Hoboocken, the office 
of pedagogue and Ziekentroster , or "consoler 
of the sick," had been filled by William 
Verstius, "a pious, well qualified and diligent 
schoolmaster," "who served for several years 
to the satisfaction of the community, and was 
only parted with on his own urgent solicitation 
to be permitted to return to Holland. 

When Harmanus Van Hoboocken came over 
in 1655. to take the place of Verstius, he found 
New Amsterdam a thriving village, numbering 
over a hundred cottages, and sheltering about 
a thousand inhabitants. He followed the 
traditions of his office by marrying a widow, 
and conducted the school so satisfactorily that, 
when at the end of several years he was re- 
placed by Evert Pietersen, he was engaged 
as eAdelborst (something above a common 



JSatiy Scbools ant> Scboolmasten 



333 



soldier) in the Company's service, at a salary 
of 10 guilders a month, and his board, and 
was also employed on Governor Stuyvesant's 
bouwery as clerk and schoolmaster. As this 
bouwery was located in the region of what is 
now lower Third Avenue, in the neighborhood 
of Twelfth Street, this second school, being at 
that time far out of town, did not conflict with 
the school in the little village near the Fort. 
There is some evidence to show that this 
lower school was held at one time within the 
walls of the Fort itself ; but this is only vaguely 
touched upon in the records, though it is a 
constant source of wonder to me that the 
great stone church raised by Kieft and of no 
use except o' Sundays, was not utilized be- 
tween-times for educational purposes. 

Now that the colony was growing so fast 
it was found that there was room for more 
than one school and schoolmaster ; but the 
church and the Company were very tena- 
cious of their rights of control, and looked 
with a jealous eye upon every effort to es- 
tablish schools outside their jurisdiction. A 
very lively controversy took place between 
the city magistrates and the colonial authori- 
ties on the occasion of the granting of a school- 
keeping license by the magistrates to Jacob 
Van Corlaer. Straightway the Governor and 
Council directed the Attorney-General to go 
to the house of van Corlaer, "who has for 



Evert 
pietersen 



334 



JEarlp Scbools anfc Scboolmasters 



Zbe 

JBuigber's 

IRemons 

etrance 



some time past arrogated to himself to keep 
school," and warn him that his arrogance and 
his school-keeping must cease, under pain of 
the displeasure of the Director and the Council. 
At this juncture the Burgomasters and 
Schepens presented a petition in Van Cor- 
ner's favor, and the delinquent himself humbly 
begged the privilege of continuing what seems 
at this remove his harmless calling ; but all 
efforts were in vain. The record states that 
"for weighty reasons influencing the Di- 
rector General and Council the apostille [mar- 
ginal note] was 'nihil actum.'" Meanwhile 
the restlessness of the burghers under their 
limited educational privileges was increasing. 
Their " Vertoogh" or remonstrance to the 
home government, had set forth that 



"There should be a public school provided with at least 
two good masters, so that first of all, in so wild a country, 
where there are many loose people, the youth be well 
taught and brought up, not only in reading and writing but 
also in the knowledge and fear of the Lord As it is now, 
the school is kept very irregularly, one and another keep- 
ing it according to his pleasure, and so long as he thinks 
proper." 

As time went on and the population stead- 
ily increased, the ideas of the colonists ex- 
panded in this direction as in every other. 
Moreover, their local pride was touched by 
the advance of New England and the estab- 
lishment in Massachusetts of the academy 



]£arl\? Scbools anfc Scboolmasters 



destined to become the first college planted 
in the Western hemisphere. In 1658, this 
righteous ambition found vent in a petition of 
the Burgomasters and Schepens to the West 
India Company. 



petition of 

JSunjomass 

ters ano 

Scbepens 



" It is represented," the petitioners say, " that the youth 
of this place and the neighborhood are increasing in num- 
ber gradually and that most of them can read and write, 
but that some of the citizens and inhabitants would like 
to send their children to a school the principal of which 
understands Latin ; but are not able to do so without 
sending them to New England ; furthermore they have not 
the means to hire a Latin schoolmaster expressly for them- 
selves from New England, and therefore they ask that the 
West India Company will send out a fit person as Latin 
schoolmaster, not doubting that the number of persons who 
will send their children to such a teacher will from year to 
year increase until an Academy shall be formed whereby 
this place to great splendour will have attained, for which, 
next to God, the Honorable Company which shall have 
sent such teacher here shall have laud and praise. For 
our own part we shall endeavor to find a fit place in which 
the Schoolmaster shall hold his school." 



It must always be borne in mind that the 
"children " for whom these educational privi- 
leges were to be provided were boys only. 
Nothing would have more surprised the 
burghers than the prediction of the classical 
schools and normal schools, the college and 
university opportunities now open to the 
daughters of Manhattan. In those days the 
domestic training of the home, or, at most, 



j£arl£ Scbools anb Scboolmasters 



Carolus 
Curtiue 



the dame-school, with its very rudimentary 
instruction in reading and writing, was 
enough to content the educational ambition 
of the colonial maidens. 

The Directors in Holland looked with favor 
upon the petition of the Burgomasters and 
Schepens ; but they did not allow their en- 
thusiasm for education to run away with the 
thrift which throughout the history of Dutch 
rule marked their dealings with the colonists. 
They wrote to Stuyvesant : 

"The Rev. Domine Drisius has intimated to us more 
than once that in his opinion it might be serviceable to 
establish a Latin School for the instruction of the youth, 
and as we do not disapprove of the plan we have thought it 
proper to communicate it to you that if you consider 
it proper to make the experiment you may advise us in 
what manner it can be effected to the greatest advantage of 
the Community, and with the least expense to the Com- 
pany." 

As a result of these consultations, the Com- 
pany, in 1659, despatched a pedagogue, bear- 
ing the portentous name of Alexander Carolus 
Curtius, to be the classical instructor of the 
new academy at New Amsterdam, which 
was to bring such "laud and praise" to all 
concerned. He started out prosperously. The 
Burgomasters voted him out of the city-chest 
a very comfortable salary of two hundred guild- 
ers, according to one authority, five hundred 
according to another, with fifty in advance. 



JBarls Scbools ant) Scboolmastevs 



337 



Besides this, Valentine fits him out with an- 
other advance of one hundred florins where- 
with to purchase merchandise to set him up in 
business on his arrival in the colony, and, as 
if this were not enough, he was granted the 
use of a house and garden and given permis- 
sion to practise medicine. The ingrate still 
complained that the compensation was in- 
sufficient, and after another anxious consulta- 
tion between the Director and the city rulers 
it was agreed that he should be allowed to 
charge six guilders per quarter for each 
scholar. His grasping greed overreached it- 
self in the next year, when he charged several 
of his pupils a whole beaver-skin, worth at 
least eight guilders. This was too much even 
for the long-suffering Burgomasters, and Mas- 
ter Curtius found his salary docked for the 
year. 

Other causes of discontent had also arisen. 
Curtius had brought over with him a fine repu- 
tation. He had been a professor in Lithuania, 
and no doubt was possessed of a vast stock 
of learning, and had the dead languages at his 
finger ends ; but unfortunately he had little 
knowledge of live human nature, and espe- 
cially boy nature, which apparently was not 
so unlike in New Amsterdam and New York. 
The little Dutch pupils laughed to scorn the 
authority of the new master, and diverted 
themselves, amid the severe application de- 



Hleyanf>er 
Caiolus 
Cuttfus 



33« 



j£arl£ Schools ano Scboolmasters 



Uuvcfe 



manded for a classical education by beat- 
ing each other and playfully tearing the 
clothes from each other's backs. Naturally 
the parents disapproved, and as naturally they 
visited their displeasure upon the unfortunate 
instructor, and we can imagine the contumely 
they heaped upon "this fine professor who 
charges a whole beaver-skin and cannot even 
keep order." Yet we can but feel a thrill of 
sympathetic commiseration for poor Alex- 
ander Carolus Curtius when we read his 
counter-complaint that he was powerless to 
preserve discipline, because "his hands were 
tied, as some of the parents forbade him pun- 
ishing their children." 

Wherever the fault lay, it soon became evi- 
dent that the children were not being trained 
up in the way they should go, and it resulted 
in the return of Curtius to Holland and the 
substitution as head master in the school, of 
/Egidius Luyck. This new incumbent, who 
was established as principal of the Latin 
School in 1662, proved entirely satisfactory. 
He was only twenty-two years old, but so 
staid in character, so firm in discipline, and of 
such high repute in scholarship that he made 
the academy well known far and wide. New 
Amsterdam began to find itself advancing to 
the front rank in educational advantages 
among the American settlements, and not 
onlv ceased to send youth to New England, 



Barl£ Scbools and Scboolmasters 



339 



but drew to itself pupils from far-away colo- 
nies — two at least being recorded from Vir- 
ginia, others from the settlements on the 
Delaware, and two, with the promise of 
more, from Fort Orange. 12 

On the capture of New Amsterdam by the 
English, Luyck returned to his native land to 
study theology; but later he came back to 
this city, then New York, married a relative 
of Director Stuyvesant, to whose sons he had 
been private tutor before taking charge of the 
Latin School, and continued his useful career 
of teacher in the colony under English rule. 13 

The regular schoolmaster, Evert Pietersen, 
who taught at the lower school while Ho- 
boocken instructed at Stuyvesant's bouwery 
and Luyck succeeded Curtius at the Latin 
School, also continued in office after the 
English occupation. He made his home on 
the south side of the 'Brouwer Straat, a section 
of what is now Stone Street, extending from 
Whitehall to Broad Street, and gaining its 
name from the brewery owned by Oloff 
Stevenson Van Courtlandt. 1 * Pietersen was 
married when he came to this country, but 
later lost his wife and, following the precedent 
of his profession, married a widow. His salary 
when he first came over on the Gilded 'Beaver 
was fixed at thirty-six guilders ($15) monthly 
and one hundred and twenty-five guilders 
annually for his board. The small amount 



Evert 
pietersen 



34° 



Barl£ Scfoools anfc Scboolmasters 



Unfluencc 
of tbc 
Cburcb 



was grudingly and irregularly paid and yet 
such was his thrift that by 1674, he was one 
of the most substantial citizens of New York, 
with a property valued at two thousand 
florins. 

The church still held its controlling hand on 
the official school in Pietersen's time, as for 
long afterwards, not having withdrawn its 
sheltering care from the descendant of that old 
Dutch school even now. This fact its histo- 
rian proudly points out and indeed we may all 
take pride in one of the longest-lived educa- 
tional institutions of our country : 

The church influence showed itself in a civil 
ordinance of New Amsterdam, bearing date 
March 17, 1664 : 



" Whereas it is highly necessary and of great consequence 
that the youth from their childhood is well instructed in 
reading, writing and arithmetic and principally in the prin- 
ciplesand fundaments of the Christian religion, in conformity 
to the lesson of that wise King Solomon, ' Learn the youth 
the first principles and as he grows old, he shall not then 
deviate from it ' ; so that in time such men may arise from it 
who may be able to serve their country in Church or in State ; 
which being seriously considered by the Director General 
and Council in New Netherland, as the number of children 
by God's merciful blessing has considerably increased, they 
have deemed it necessary so that such an useful, and to our 
God, agreeable concern may be more effectually promoted, 
to recommend the present school master and to command 
him, so as it is done by this, that they (Pietersen and Van 
Hoboocken) on Wednesday before the beginning of the 
sermon with the children intrusted to their care, shall appear 



Barlp Scbools an& Scboolmasters 



34* 



in the Church to examine after the close of the sermon each 
of them his own scholars in the presence of the reverend 
ministers and elders who may then be present, what they, 
in the course of the week, do remember of the Christian 
commands and Catechism, and what progress they have 
made ; after which the children shall be allowed a decent 
recreation." u 



English 

IFnfluence 

on tbc 

2>utcb 

School 



Under early English rule the schooling of the 
Dutch children was little interfered with. 
They were to be instructed in the "Nether- 
landisch tongue" as of old, and the school- 
master was still to be under the supervision of 
the Consistory. The school hours were fixed 
from nine to eleven A.M. in summer, from 
half-past nine to half-past twelve in winter, 
while the afternoon session the year round 
lasted from one to five o'clock. 14 The schools 
were opened and closed with prayer, twice a 
week the pupils were examined in the 
catechism, and express stipulation was made 
that teachers should use "none but edifying 
and orthodox text-books and such as snould 
meet the approbation of the Consistory." 

The control of the schools so wisely con- 
ceded by the English continued in the hands 
of the Dutch long enough to stamp the char- 
acter which endures to this day in the repre- 
sentative School of the Collegiate Reformed 
Dutch Church of New York, which with 
all its fine buildings and elaborate equipments 
is the direct successor of the little school gath- 



34^ 



JEarlE Schools ano Schoolmasters 



Xiet of 
fiarlt 
School* 
masters 



ered together by Adam Roelantsen under the 
shadow of the old Fort. 

Those of us of Dutch blood have a special 
right to look with pride upon this steady 
growth of the educational institution planted 
and fostered by our forefathers and bearing 
perpetual testimony to their energy and per- 
severance, their just valuation of "the things 
of the spirit," their respect for learning, and 
their determination to "learn the youth the 
first principles " and to make them men " who 
may be able to serve their country in Church 
and State." We are compelled to respect 
their earnestness and their persistence under 
what might well have seemed insurmount- 
able difficulties, and however we may smile 
at the limitations of those early days, we 
must recognize that New Amsterdam has 
as good a claim as New England to the praise 
of the poet: 



And still maintains with milder laws 

And clearer light the good old cause — 

Nor heeds the sceptic's puny hands 

While near her school the church-spire stands, 

Nor fears the blinded bigot's rule 

While near her church-spire stands the school." 



The following is a list of the early school- 
masters in their order: 



jEarlp Scbools anfc Scboolmasters 


343 


Official. 


Xfst of 




Earlv 


Adam Roelantsen, 


ScbooI= 
masters. 


Jan Stevensen, 




Jan Cornelissen, 




William Verstius, 




Johannes Morice de la Montagne, 




Harmanus Van Hoboocken, 




Evert Pietersen. 




Among the unofficial and semi-official teach- 




ers, fore-singers, and krank-besoeckers were : 




Adriaen Jansen Van Ilpendam, 




David Provoost, 




Joost Carelse, 




Hans Steyn, 




Andries Hudde, 




Jacobus van Corlaer, 




Jan Lubbertsen, 




Jan Juriaense Beeker, 




i Frans Claessen, 




Johannes Van Gelder. 




Latin School. 




Alexander Carolus Curtius, 




Aegidius Luyck. 




End of the Dutch Rule, 1674. 





344 


]£arl£ Scbools ant> Scboolmasters 


inferences 


i. 


REFERENCES. 

Fisher's Colonial Era. 




2. 


Valentine's Corporation Manual, 1863, p. 559 et seq. 




3- 


History of the School of the Collegiate Reformed 
Dutch Church, p. 17. 




4- 


E. B. O'Callaghan's History of New Netherland, ii., 
p. 569. 




5- 


Register of New Netherland, p. 129. 




6. 


Register of New Netherland, p. 129. 




7- 


Valentine's Corporation Manual, 1863, p. 561. 




8. 


Holland Documents, [see letters throughout]. 




9- 


Holland Documents, iv., p. 300. 




IO. 


Paulding's New Amsterdam in 1 647-1 659, p. 40. 




1 1. 


Tuckerman's Life of Peter Stuyvesant, p. 167. 




12. 


Albany Records. 




•3- 


Tuckerman's Life of Peter Stuyvesant, p. 107. 




14. 


New Amsterdam Records. 




<5- 


Albany T^ecords, xxii. 




16. 


History of the School of the Collegiate "Reformed 
Dutch Church, p. ^9. 



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